Sufficient exercise and an appropriate diet are recognized as being necessary for building and retaining good health. Unfortunately a majority of Americans, while knowing these facts, are unable to practice these healthy habits. The federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta has recently announced that 60% percent of Americans do not exercise enough. A similar number of Americans are either overweight or obese. One of the results of this is that health costs in the US exceed that of most of the industrialized nations of the world. Recent information has shown that not only is aerobic exercise necessary, but that strength training also has very significant health benefits. The present invention is designed to facilitate motivating Americans, especially the employees of large corporations and other organizations, to exercise regularly and eat property. These two factors must be present, and by comparing the exercise metrics and a number of medical measurements the system can evaluate users' and participants' compliance with the dietary protocol.
The key to this shift in behavior will be the introduction of a compact, moderate cost, exercise device which will be able to generate and transmit electronic data accurately showing the watts and calories generated by the user. This data will distinguish between cardio-vascular and strength training for the individual. At the present time there is no modest cost, compact equipment capable of doing this. There are a large number of simple exercise devices on the market, but none of these are able to produce the electronic data necessary to accurately quantify and transmit the efforts of the exerciser to a distant location.
It is well known that the human body responds relatively quickly, in a matter of months, to regular exercise and an appropriate diet. Organization employees who use this device in their homes will be given a financial reward; a reduction in the cost of their health insurance, if they meet the requirements of a medically established protocol designed especially for their age and other individual characteristics. Their reward is based upon the fact that their biological age will actually be significantly lower than their chronological age as a result of performing the required exercise. Their health maintenance costs will be markedly lower.
The basis of this unique exercise device is the hydro-kinetic fluid coupling. This type of fluid coupling can act as a brake or clutch, and in either mode it provides a resistance to motion that needs only a speed sensor to accurately provide the instantaneous watts generated by the user. Given the duration of the exercise in fractions of a second, of the fluctuating watts (power) generated by the human muscle, the device accurately provides calorie information of the exercise performed. This invention incorporates a variety of frames and configurations that can be used with this compact, fluid device which is capable of creating a wide range of resistance.
Patented prior art which relates to this invention includes Friesl U.S. Pat. No. 5,211,613 which illustrates an indoor cycle which uses a fan as the resistance producing means. This device limits the user to a fixed resistance for any particular cadence. Warner U.S. Pat. No. 5,938,551 demonstrates an upper body cycle utilizing a fan which has a variable pitch pulley system, and improves on Friesl by allowing the user to vary the resistance at any particular cadence. This system makes no claim to measure the watts of resistance only the movement of a potentiometer which can only indicate the level of difficulty. It would be necessary to include the cadence or some other fan speed indicator to allow the calculation of watts. This device has no means for lower body exercise. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,645,199 and 4,741,529 Bloemendaal uses a viscous shear fluid brake to provide resistance. The method of Bloemendall of creating resistance is hampered by the effect of heat which causes an uncontrolled change in resistance due to the change in viscosity of fluid. There is no mention of providing the user with an accurate watts value.
The two key habits of sufficient exercise and healthy dietary practices can lead to significant health improvements; the automated tracking of exercise performance and other health metrics, e.g., body weight, body fat, and body measurements can be used to evaluate a participant's compliance with a recommended dietary protocol. Monitoring the exercise behavior of participants in an exercise regimen by means of information technology further provides the potential for improving the compliance of the participants by enabling health improvement tracking and associated reward programs. When compliance with an exercise program is sustained, the participants of the program may reduce their individual biological ages and thereby reduce their individual need for medical services. Employers and health insurers of compliant participants may thereby experience reduced medical expenditures.
The prior art has introduced numerous exercise machines that attempt to conveniently enable exercise. Yet the prior art fails to provide an exercise device that optimally provides the opportunity to selectively engage in exercise intensity and that generates information in an electronic format accessible to information technology systems.
Prior art devices allow a person to walk or run in place; stepper machines allow a person to climb in place; bicycle machines allow a person to pedal in place; and other machines allow a person to skate and/or stride in place. Yet another type of exercise equipment has been designed to facilitate relatively more complicated exercise motions and/or to better simulate real life activity. Such equipment typically uses some sort of linkage assembly to convert a relatively simple motion, such as circular, into a relatively more complex motion, such as elliptical.
Prior art exercise equipment employs various methods of providing resistance against which a user applies muscular force, as well as equipment for monitoring athletic effort expended by the user. Other relevant prior art examples include U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,974 (Inventors Sherman, et al.), issued on Sep. 13, 1983, discloses a position control mechanism for a variable drive ratio pulley system; U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,783 (Inventor Engalitcheff, Jr.), issued on Sep. 6, 1988, discloses an apparatus for the rehabilitation of damaged limbs; U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,811 (Inventor Giberson), issued on Jul. 26, 1994, discloses a fluid drive; U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,365 (Inventor Arao), issued on May 11, 1976, discloses a fluid drive apparatus; U.S. Pat. No. 7,097,596 (Inventor Yang) filed on Aug. 29, 2006 discloses an exercise bicycle; U.S. Pat. No. 6,945,917 (Inventor Baatz) issued on Sep. 20, 2005 discloses a resistance exercise apparatus and trainer; U.S. Pat. No. 6,902,515 (Inventors Howell, et al.) issued on Jun. 7, 2005 discloses a multi-functional exercise apparatus; U.S. Pat. No. 6,869,384 (Inventor Shui) issued on Mar. 22, 2005 discloses an exercising bicycle; U.S. Pat. No. 6,856,934 (Inventors Vock, et al.) issued on Feb. 15, 2005 discloses sport monitoring systems and associated methods; U.S. Pat. No. 5,944,637 (Inventors Stickler, et al.) issued on Aug. 31, 1999 discloses a modular fluid resistance unit for bicycle training equipment; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,808,472 (Inventor Hickman) issued on Oct. 26, 2004 discloses a method and apparatus for remote interactive exercise and health equipment.
The entire disclosures of each and every patent mentioned in this present disclosure, to include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,403,974; 5,331,811; 3,955,365; 5,211,613; 5,938,551; 4,645,199; 4,741,529; 4,768,783; 7,097,596; 6,945,917; 6,902,515; 6,869,384; 6,856,934; 5,944,637; 6,808,472 as noted above, are incorporated herein by reference and for all purposes.
Yet the prior art fails to optimally apply fluid braking technology to exercise equipment. In addition, the prior art fails to optimally distinguish aerobic from anaerobic exercise on the basis of an observed cadence of exercise and wattage exhibited by an exercise device